To dissolve, submerge, and cause to disappear the political or governmental system in the economic system by reducing, simplifying, decentralizing and suppressing, one after another, all the wheels of this great machine, which is called the Government or the State. --Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution

Monday, June 13, 2005

A (Partial) Neoconservative Lexicon

Moral Relativism. Aka historicism. The denial of any unified, objective standard of value. The diametric opposite of Moral Equivalence (q.v.).

Moral Equivalence. Judgment of the United States government by the same unified, objective standard of value as the governments of other countries. The diametric opposite of Moral Relativism (q.v.).

Moral Clarity. The Zen-like state of mind from which it is possible accuse the same political enemy, simultaneously, of both Moral Relativism and Moral Equivalence.

Elites. Latte-sipping, brie-eating, Volvo-driving, little magazine-reading, effete snobs who live on the coasts, whom it is entirely permissible to attack for their privileged lifestyle. Such attacks are entirely different from the heinous crime of Class Warfare (q.v.), which no decent person will engage in.

Class Warfare. Demagogic attacks based on the entirely specious ground of unearned wealth, a sin up with which the neocons will not put. Entirely different from demagogic attacks based on cultural characteristics like the kind of food and entertainment one likes (see Elites).

Blame America First. Blame the lying, mendacious gang of swine in Washington and Wall Street who own most of America, and who claim to speak and act on behalf of the people who actually live and work in this country.